Questions around spirituality

We’re going to start this part of the calendar with some questions for you to consider around your relationship with spirituality. But before we do this, here’s a bit of context as to how we’ve opted to keep this section secular.

As all of our Self Detective materials are designed to support and challenge us when it comes to notions of self-directed well-being, none of our ingredients would ever be considered right or wrong. Instead, we strive to give you food for thought, forever asking, “Is this useful to you? Is this grist for your own self-empowered mill?”

Having said that, there are areas of public life that we would consider to be questionable when it comes to our individual and collective wellness. Systems, constructions, institutions and models that apply oppression, discrimination, conflict, hierarchies, inequality, divide and rule, coercion and control over people, seem so at odds with self-determination that we would not include them in our toolkit. So while we do not promote leadership, authority and authoritarianism nor do we sponsor supreme beings and divine rule.

Yet the last thing we want to do is alienate anyone from pick and mixing their way through our bite-sized nuggets of knowledge and reflecting on them in whichever way they want to. So can we stress the following: just as we anticipate people believing in authority and still being able to use our resources for their own ends, so do we hope people of faith will do the same. We will not impose on anyone’s sovereignty and hope that they will do the same in return.

And now to the questions…

What does the word ‘spirituality’ mean to you?
Does it turn you on or turn you off?
Would you say you have a spiritual side?
Where might spirituality begin and other learnings/influences, such as philosophy, psychology and science end? Or do they all overlap? Or does it really not matter?
Do you make distinctions between western and eastern approaches, between traditional and new age? Between the religious and the secular?
What is the opposite of spirituality? Consumerism? Materialism? Fascism?